It's not too often that you get to hear an ASR approach being conducted on the Flint feed. Normally the final controller will be on 133.8, which is not covered by the LiveATC feed; however, on Monday they were using 128.55, which is great for our purposes here because we can hear the approach being conducted.

For those who don't know, an ASR, or surveillance approach, is an instrument approach procedure that can be used at most airports with an on-site Airport Surveillance Radar system. A dedicated "final controller" pays careful attention to a target's progress as it travels toward the runway threshold. Precise time-based or radar-based vectors are provided to keep the aircraft on the final approach course. If the no-gyro option is requested by the pilot, the controller will advise the pilot when to start and stop each turn, timing the turns with a timer at his or her console. If the pilot will use directional gyros, precise headings are issued (ie. fly heading 233) as a means of maintaining a very tight tolerance on the final approach course.

I clipped it down to about 3 minutes, leaving the time between the no-gyro vectors as-is to allow listeners to get the feel for what it really sounds like between those instructions. It's a little choppy in the beginning, and you can't hear the controller's briefing very well, but towards the end it becomes much more clear.

Probably the most annoying thing about this is the pilot not using the phonetic alphabet on the radio, but I digress...I'm glad I was finally able to hear one of these on the LiveATC network . Enjoy.

I'd strongly recommend trying these approaches if you are out cranking out approaches during a slow time with ATC. It's a win / win situation as ATC as I understand it has to maintain currency on these type approaches.

Same for light gun airwork, pick a slow traffic time and try some light gun work. It is very "enlightening" at least for this pilot on how hard that type of an approach can be.